A man reads a flyer announcing a strike by metro services at the shuttered entrance of the Monastiraki Metro station in Athens, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013. Striking metro workers in Athens defied a court order to return to their jobs and continued their protest for a seventh day on Wednesday, as demonstrations against new pay cuts escalated in the Greek capital. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
(The Associated Press)

ATHENS, Greece – Greece's conservative prime minister is holding an emergency meeting to decide how to get striking public transport employees back to work.

The confrontation is a challenge to the government's latest round of austerity measures, needed for continued bailout payments but which have also deepened hardship as the country enters a sixth year of recession.

The government has not ruled out forcing the strikers back to work, using special powers normally reserved for wartime or national emergencies.